Is missions a parasite or bone marrow for your church? Does it drain the life blood from your church or generate life blood for the church? I’ve seen it do both.

I’ve seen churches where most of the congregation and local staff ranged from ambivalent to antagonistic toward their global ministries. Missions Sunday is a slog of trying to convince people to support things they don’t greatly value. It feels like a duty instead of a joy. Only a tiny but influential group of insiders really understand or care about international ministries. Local staff complain among themselves about the expense and resent the limitations that missions spending places on what they can do. Every budget process requires the missions committee to defend their budget from the other ministries who want a piece of their pie. Missions functions like a parasite on the church in the eyes of the majority of the congregation.

I’ve seen other churches where the congregation and staff are huge supporters of their global ministries. They love to hear the stories of what God is doing in their international partnerships, seek to learn from those stories, and share them as sources of encouragement in worship, classes, and small groups. Global partners are viewed as extensions of the congregation and treated as the R & D (Research and Development) side of the congregation. What happens “there” shapes what happens “here.” What happens “here” shapes what happens “there.” Communication and care flow back and forth naturally and regularly. One of the reasons people love their church is because of the global impact it is having. Missions functions like bone marrow which generates the red blood cells of the body.

What makes the difference? Vision, alignment, and communication.

Vision

For mission to function as borrow marrow, the church’s vision must include a global dimension. While the congregation may reside in one city, their vision is local, regional, national, and global. They see the world in concentric circles of Kingdom community and understand how they serve God’s mission at each level. Missions isn’t an add-on for the few who care about that sort of thing. Missions is what the church does at every level. There is no us and them. It is all us.

Alignment

What the church is called to do locally fits with what it supports globally. The same values tie everything together. The locations, cultures, and some strategies may differ, but the message, purpose, and objectives that drive everything are the same. It just makes sense.

In order to get alignment, it may mean your congregation needs to invest in different stories. Sometimes churches get stuck in missions projects that excite a few insiders, but do not fit the congregation as a whole. When that happens, you have a problem. Not every good mission work fits every church. Even if a global ministry is a good one, it is not wise to ask a church to fund it if they don’t understand it or value it. For missions to function as bone marrow, mission efforts not only need to be high quality, they also need to fit the church that partners with them. In bone marrow churches, each missions’ partnership is a three-legged stool. The church trusts the workers, feels called to the people/place being reached, and agrees with the strategy being used. This kind of alignment is powerful and enduring.

Communication

The church knows what is happening in their global ministries. The stories get told regularly through various channels and are not limited to a missions Sunday or season. The church knows because people regularly go see what is happening and come back to show and tell. Workers are interviewed and given platforms to share what God is doing around the world by video or in person when they are in the USA. Mission is not presented as what “they” do, it is what “we” do. The God stories from every field are celebrated and the whole church understands their global impact.

While the path to having missions function as bone marrow may take some planning and effort, it is well worth it. When the whole church is given life by what God is doing globally, they are more likely to be on mission locally. Mission is not a zero-sum game. It is untrue that the more money we give to global ministry the less we have for local ministry. Rather, as churches come to understand the impact they are having by joining God globally, they become more generous and evangelistic locally. If mission behaves like a parasite in your church, you can change that. If you would like some help doing that, call us.

Parasite vs. Bone Marrow